Redskins, Cowboys could go “nuclear” over cap mess

[Monkeydad]

OK, I'm getting very frustrated with these cap penalties.

This morning I heard on Yahoo Sports Radio that Jonathan Vilma's lawyer had the Saints restructure his contract for the upcoming season before the known suspension was announced. They reduced his salary and cap number down to the league minimum for the lost 2012 season and paid him a big bonus, so when he would be suspended, he'd lose the least amount of money possible.


Then I open my browser and see this on the news:
Surprising Player Tops NFL Salaries | ThePostGame

Charles Johnson is the highest-paid player in 2011? He was paid $34million of a $72million contract in one season? Sounds exactly like what we were handed a salary cap death sentence for.

I expect the Saints to get punished and piled on for the Vilma contract, but the Panthers will probably be held to a different standard than us and Dallas....just like Chicago, Houston and other teams that did the exact same thing as us.

This selective enforcement is really getting old.

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by Monkeydad

OK, I'm getting very frustrated with these cap penalties.

This morning I heard on Yahoo Sports Radio that Jonathan Vilma's lawyer had the Saints restructure his contract for the upcoming season before the known suspension was announced. They reduced his salary and cap number down to the league minimum for the lost 2012 season and paid him a big bonus, so when he would be suspended, he'd lose the least amount of money possible.


Then I open my browser and see this on the news:
Surprising Player Tops NFL Salaries | ThePostGame

Charles Johnson is the highest-paid player in 2011? He was paid $34million of a $72million contract in one season? Sounds exactly like what we were handed a salary cap death sentence for.

I expect the Saints to get punished and piled on for the Vilma contract, but the Panthers will probably be held to a different standard than us and Dallas....just like Chicago, Houston and other teams that did the exact same thing as us.

This selective enforcement is really getting old.

Good post. Goodell just really seems lost on this subject and I agree he is wildly inconsistent. I dont see how the arbitrator is going to rule in the NFL favor. My biggest problem is the NFL signed off on our contracts, why?

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

Good post. Goodell just really seems lost on this subject and I agree he is wildly inconsistent. I dont see how the arbitrator is going to rule in the NFL favor. My biggest problem is the NFL signed off on our contracts, why?

I agree with you on both points. My question is, what else will the arbitrator grant us besides giving us our 18MM back in 2013? The damage has already been done in 2012, so theres not much point in giving us money back this year. If they give us another 18MM next year, it could possibly hurt us more than help, as we would need to spend tons of money to reach the salary floor (which goes into effect next year). we'd essentially have to overspend on big name free agents and i, for one, dont want the skins to go back to that model of running a franchise.

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

I agree with you on both points. My question is, what else will the arbitrator grant us besides giving us our 18MM back in 2013? The damage has already been done in 2012, so theres not much point in giving us money back this year. If they give us another 18MM next year, it could possibly hurt us more than help, as we would need to spend tons of money to reach the salary floor (which goes into effect next year). we'd essentially have to overspend on big name free agents and i, for one, dont want the skins to go back to that model of running a franchise.

agree, 18mil would have to include stipulations where if we didnt spend it wouldnt hurt us as part of the compensation deal. Why not compensatory damages that includes draft picks as well?

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

agree, 18mil would have to include stipulations where if we didnt spend it wouldnt hurt us as part of the compensation deal. Why not compensatory damages that includes draft picks as well?

Maybe we could get a compensatory 3rd rounder or two as the situation is somewhat similar to how the compensatory picks are awarded now - teams who lose more free agents than they sign get compensatory picks (i realize i'm over simplyfing it). In our situation, we lost the ability to sign free agents.

[Monkeydad]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

Good post. Goodell just really seems lost on this subject and I agree he is wildly inconsistent. I dont see how the arbitrator is going to rule in the NFL favor. My biggest problem is the NFL signed off on our contracts, why?

We're back to that issue again. The League is approving contracts only to punish the teams for them later? Why not FOLLOW their own rules and disallow a bad contract from the start?

If what I heard about Vilma's contract is true, it would have been blatantly obvious to anyone, especially the League office what the Saints were doing. They knew they were going to suspend him, but they still approve a contract restructuring that is manipulating the salary cap and intentionally trying to minimize the impact of a player's punishment from the League?

"You're going to suspend our guy and take his pay for a year? Well, then we'll slash his salary for the year, move it to next year when he plays and give him a bonus!"

Yeah, that will teach the players a lesson...

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by Monkeydad

Then I open my browser and see this on the news:
Surprising Player Tops NFL Salaries | ThePostGame

Charles Johnson is the highest-paid player in 2011? He was paid $34million of a $72million contract in one season? Sounds exactly like what we were handed a salary cap death sentence for.

I expect the Saints to get punished and piled on for the Vilma contract, but the Panthers will probably be held to a different standard than us and Dallas....just like Chicago, Houston and other teams that did the exact same thing as us.

This selective enforcement is really getting old.

2011 wasn't a uncapped year though. Just throwing that out there, not that I don't agree.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by Monkeydad

OK, I'm getting very frustrated with these cap penalties.

This morning I heard on Yahoo Sports Radio that Jonathan Vilma's lawyer had the Saints restructure his contract for the upcoming season before the known suspension was announced. They reduced his salary and cap number down to the league minimum for the lost 2012 season and paid him a big bonus, so when he would be suspended, he'd lose the least amount of money possible.


Then I open my browser and see this on the news:
Surprising Player Tops NFL Salaries | ThePostGame

Charles Johnson is the highest-paid player in 2011? He was paid $34million of a $72million contract in one season? Sounds exactly like what we were handed a salary cap death sentence for.

I expect the Saints to get punished and piled on for the Vilma contract, but the Panthers will probably be held to a different standard than us and Dallas....just like Chicago, Houston and other teams that did the exact same thing as us.

This selective enforcement is really getting old.

I don't see anything wrong with either of those things.

First, $30m of Johnson's $34m in 2011 was signing bonus. That's prorated over the life of the contract, so his 2011 cap hit is only $9m. ($30m/6yrs + $4m 2011 salary). That's actually less than average.

And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is a capped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year.

As for Vilma, nothing wrong with that either. They're moving cap hit into the future (capped) years to do him a favor. They may also be doing it to free up cap space to sign Brees, but there's nothing wrong with moving cap hit from one year's cap to another. Heck, any unused cap space in one year can be rolled over into the next year.

FWIW, that's why the Skins aren't completely destroyed by the $18m penalty - they had around $13m unused cap credit rolled over from last year.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

I don't see anything wrong with either of those things.

First, $30m of Johnson's $34m in 2011 was signing bonus. That's prorated over the life of the contract, so his 2011 cap hit is only $9m. ($30m/6yrs + $4m 2011 salary). That's actually less than average.

And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is an uncapped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year.

As for Vilma, nothing wrong with that either. They're moving cap hit into the future (capped) years to do him a favor. They may also be doing it to free up cap space to sign Brees, but there's nothing wrong with moving cap hit from one year's cap to another. Heck, any unused cap space in one year can be rolled over into the next year.

FWIW, that's why the Skins aren't completely destroyed by the $18m penalty - they had around $13m unused cap credit rolled over from last year.

2011 wasn't an uncapped year.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

2011 wasn't an uncapped year.

Good catch. Mistyped that, and it doesn't make sense as written. Should read:

"And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is a capped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year."

[T.O.Killa]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

Good catch. Mistyped that, and it doesn't make sense as written. Should read:

"And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is a capped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year."

Yeah, but they did gain an unfair advantage in futures years by going so far below the cap floor in the uncapped year that they could make this huge charge to 2011. Reducig the charge in future years.

[That Guy]

there's a cap in place. the money isn't disappearing into a capless hole, so every cent of that 72mill is accounted for in cap space one way or the other. if he got 34mill, some of that is bonus money which is prorated over the life of the contract.

I think the skins penalty is bogus, but that's a completely different cirumstance to the quoted article, which is meaningless in the skins' case.

[mooby]

All this talk about "why isn't the league office punishing other teams for similar moves" brings to mind the fact that the league office is only the people enforcing the punishment, but they aren't the main reason for the punishment itself. That would be John Mara, head of that committee that made the punishment, and also known as co-owner of one of our closest rivals. He doesn't give a shit what the Panthers, Bears, or any other team did, he saw an opportunity to punish us and he took it.

[Monkeydad]

Originally Posted by mooby

All this talk about "why isn't the league office punishing other teams for similar moves" brings to mind the fact that the league office is only the people enforcing the punishment, but they aren't the main reason for the punishment itself. That would be John Mara, head of that committee that made the punishment, and also known as co-owner of one of our closest rivals. He doesn't give a shit what the Panthers, Bears, or any other team did, he saw an opportunity to punish us and he took it.

Yeah, really interesting how the two teams hit by major punishments were in the NFC East.

[Monkeydad]

Do you think WE could get away with a move like they did with Vilma.

Lets say Fred Davis or Trent Williams are repeat morons and light up again...facing a year suspension. Do you think we'd get away with slashing his pay for the suspended year to save cap space and minimize his punishment?

I don't think the Saints will get away with it since they're under a microscope and I get Goodell will take this as them diminishing his power...but it seems pretty obvious they're playing with contracts to get around punishments.


Maybe before we were hammered, I would not care about this, but since we were hit hard for cap maneuvering that wasn't even against the rules and were approved by the league...I guess I want to see every other offender punished just as equally.